We had an excellent weekend on Lundy this year, we were fortunate to have good weather on the island and smooth crossings on the ferry. The excellent weather allowed us to do plenty of climbing, although unfortunately on the first day this was curtailed due to side effects from sea sickness drugs! As we hadn’t done much climbing this year we enjoyed some of the islands easier classic routes which we had missed previously.
Having abandoned the Dolomites due to unexpected snow, we headed to Arco which is just north of Lake Garda. Arco is best known to climbers for sport climbing, however it turns out there is also a huge amount of big multi-pitch naturally protected routes. For the most part these seemed to have fixed protection, either threads or bolts. But it was occasionally necessary to place gear. For the first few days we climbed routes just north of where we were camping which were 3-4 pitches. These were enjoyable routes, and more importantly they were out of the afternoon sun! On the last day we headed further up the valley to climb a long multi pitch route called La Bellezza Della Venere. The route climbed 300m in 9 pitches, and was excellent throughout. It was slightly marred by some rude Germans behind us who were getting angry with the party in front of us who were not as fast as they wanted to be. We enjoyed a relaxed day on the rock, in the sun, with beautiful views up the valley while chatting with the party in front of us at belays.. Read the full article…
Due to snow in the Dolomites and a cold forecast for the remaining week, we decided to decamp to Lake Garda where the forecast was 15 degrees warmer and for constant sunshine. The via ferrata of the region which stood out to us was Ferrata Che Guevara, which climbs an impressively big face and gains 1220m in the process. The total height gain throughout the day was 1380m! As we didn’t want to move the van from the campsite, we decided to cycle the 15km up the valley to the start of the route, which was a bit harder work than anticipated with 20% hills to climb en route! It was a strange start to a big mountain day, as we had to walk through an industrial estate and then around huge quarry. The ascent up to the start of the cable in the woods was hard work due to the heat, which turns out was just a sign of things to come. We almost didn’t start the via ferrata due to a rockfall incident from an inexperienced person above, who had left his girlfriend at the bottom unable to. Read the full article…
After a leisurely start we headed over to the Sella pass to do the Delle Mèsules via ferrata, unfortunately we discovered that the pass was closed to cars every Wednesday during the summer when we got to the bottom of the pass. Thankfully it turned out that we could get a bus up to the start of the route, it just meant that we had a defined finish time as it would be a very long walk back if we missed the bus. The short walk to the start was under the impressive Sella towers. The start of the via ferrata was the most sustained part of the route, with excellent climbing but some fairly long sections of cable which made it feel fairly exposed. After this first section of steep climbing there was an easier but unprotected section, this included a short chimney, an exposed ladder and then a climb up into a rift. We decided to get a rope out here and quickly moved together up this section. After exiting the confines of the rift, we moved around onto an exposed face. The climbing up this face was amazing. Read the full article…